Wednesday, July 31, 2013

"Incidents" vs "incidence" -- what's the difference?

There is a general election going on (not "ongoing") in Zimbabwe today. Walt, being a former resident, is following the bumbling ["voting", surely! Ed.] closely, checking the tweets and online reports. He has just read the following:

"201 people have voted at Msiteli Secondary School in Bulawayo by midday. There are no major incidences recorded."

Walt is now huffing and puffing around the cabin, nearly apoplectic about the tweeter's misuse of the word "incidence". If it were just one product of the Zimbabwean education system, it wouldn't be so bad, but we are sick, sore and tired of hearing supposedly educated "journalists" in North America and Britain confuse "incidence" -- inevitably pluralized as "incidences", as above -- and "incidents". Let's straighten this out.

An "incident" -- singular -- is an individual occurrence or a happening. Thus, if a cop shoots an unarmed civilian at the corner of Jane and Finch, that's one incident. If another cop shoots another unarmed civilian at the corner of Yonge and Shuter [there really is such an intersection. Ed.], that's another incident. One incident plus one incident makes two incidents.

"Incidence" is the rate or range of occurrence or influence of something, especially of something unwanted, e.g. "the high incidence of heart disease in men over 40".

"Incidence" is a collective noun [like "vacuum cleaner". Ed.], and shouldn't be used in the plural -- incidences -- unless one is speaking of the rates of occurrence of two different things, e.g. "the incidences of both robbery and homicide have increased in integrated neighbourhoods". Even then, it's an awkward construction, best avoided.

Please forward this to all the English and journalism teachers on your mailing list. As if anyone cares, but we pedants can always hope.

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